Game 5: Canadiens at Bruins

The Bruins had only two players besides on the ice over 20 minutes, Zdeno Chara (24:36) and Johnny Boychuk (22:22). The Bruins once again managed to hold Montreal without an even-strength goal with these conservative numbers. Matt Bartkowski (18:37, plus-2) and Dougie Hamilton (18:35, even) were the other two top-four defensemen, but Kevan Miller (17:44) and Torey Krug (15:44) played a healthy amount of the game.

Miller and Bartkowski were on the ice for Brendan Gallagher’s powerplay goal at 14:39 of the second period, and Miller and Chara were on for P.K. Subban’s PPG with 2:29 remaining in regulation.

Montreal went 2-for-5 (.400) with the man advantage, a dark spot on an otherwise-bright night for Boston. The Bruins went 2-for-4 on the powerplay.

Former NHL head coach Doug MacLean, who guided the Florida Panthers to the 1996 Stanley Cup final in their third season of existence, figures the series turned when Claude Julien adjusted his forecheck from an aggressive 1-2-2 into something a little more preventive that shut down some neutral-zone speed plays the Canadiens had been having success with in games 1-3.

Even though the ’96 Panthers played under different rules — there was no two-line pass allowed — he agreed that Boston’s aggressive darting at the puck from a conservative position in the middle of the rink is similar to his own strategy with Florida. “That’s what we did,” he said.

Forechecking is a little more complicated without the red line, not only in preventing the touchdown pass — the Bruins are most vulnerable to that during line changes — but in cutting down and closing off passing plays between the blue lines. The Bruins, with a bevy of young defensemen, have limited Montreal’s attack at 5-on-5, and the opportunities are coming for Montreal primarily on the powerplay. No doubt, the Bruins will be stressing containment in the corners without penalties in Game 6.

ONE WORD …

Zdeno Chara on the Bruins’ powerplay (2 goals tonight): “We certainly tried to work hard at it. You know, create something. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to score on every powerplay opportunity, but you want to make sure that you create some kind of momentum or create some good chances. I think maybe the difference was we were able to score on those.”

Brian Gionta on Montreal’s lack of offense 5-on-5: “We weren’t able to establish much. Our transition game wasn’t there. We weren’t moving it out quick enough. When we are doing that it allows them to set up in their trap and they took advantage of us tonight.”

Montreal coach Michel Therrien on P.K. Subban getting sprayed by water from the Boston bench (presumably when he was yapping with Milan Lucic): “Yeah, we saw that. I don’t want to comment on that.”

Therrien said is not contemplating a line shakeup to separate Max Pacioretty from center David Desharnais.

Jarome Iginla on the backhand pass Torey Krug sent him from the halfwall: “Yeah, it was a great pass. I was just trying to sneak back and just hope that he would see me, and I wasn’t sure but he did and he threw it right on my tape. It’s a tough play, it was P.K., the guy he beat. (Krug)’s a special player and he’s a very creative guy. We’ve been fortunate all year to have the young guys on our PP units, Dougie Hamilton, Krugs, Smitty, it’s pretty impressive composure they have because there was some good pressure there, but it felt good, great pass and I was just trying to get it off quick and fortunately it went five hole.”

Subban, addressing the water squirting incident: “I don’t know if it is part of the game. I am sure if that was me that did it, it would be a different story. It would probably be on the new for the next three days. I don’t expect that to be a story, but listen, whatever it takes to win.”

[Subban said he got hit with water on his face shield twice, causing him to lose vision for “a minute and a half.”

More Subban: “Listen, they beat us. That’s not the reason why we lost. It’s just one of those things that frustrates you even more towards the end of the game. I don’t want to take away anything from their team. They played well today, they executed. We have to be better. Now it’s do or die for us going back home.”

GAME DAY

The Bruins and the Canadiens have had their morning skates and talked to the media in advance of tonight’s Game 5 with their second-round series locked up at 2-2.

Faceoff is 7:10 (two anthems for Rene Rancourt).

With his special teams struggling against Montreal in the first two games in Boston, Bruins coach Claude Julien was hesitant to consider the dominance of 5-on-5 hockey in Games 3 and 4 in Montreal as an advantage to the Bruins (who, in fairness to Julien, did dominated Detroit in special teams before coming up empty-handed vs. MTL).

“I don’t know, I mean, this series here might be a little different,” said Julien. “We haven’t scored on the powerplay yet. We hit a crossbar last game, we hit a post at some point. You have to look at all those different things. … I have no complaints about the refereeing. In this series, I think they’ve done a wonderful job of letting both teams play. So, at the end of the night for the most part, the better team’s won.”

After the Canadiens skated, a reporter pointed out to Montreal coach Michel Therrien during his presser that 22 penalties were called in Boston as opposed to five over the last two games in Montreal. Therrien was already chuckling when told that Julien said the officials “are doing a wonderful job.”

“I’m sure he said that,” laughed Therrien, almost keeling over on the table.

In the Montreal room, the focus was on Max Pacioretty, who admits he is losing in the 1-on-1 battle with Zdeno Chara to this point (the Bruins top pairing has yet to surrender an even-strength goal in the series).

“There’s nothing (for Therrien) to say, I’ve got to find a way to score goals, I haven’t done that. I’ve been competing, I’ve got to maybe just relax a bit at times, maybe I’m a little trigger-happy, but I consider this series our team has had a success,” said Pacioretty. “We’ve played a certain way, we gotten better every game. I haven’t contributed offensively to that success and I hope to do so from now on.”

It may be that the Zdeno Chara-Dougie Hamilton pairing is well suited for a rangy winger like Pacioretty because of their extraordinary reach. Jaromir Jagr used to complain about how tough it was trying to play against Hal Gill.

“Chara’s been really good in this series. He goes into battles not worrying about someone playing the body on him — he’s so big he doesn’t have to worry about that and he’s got a long reach,” said Pacioretty. “Obviously, he’s difficult to play against, but it’s a great challenge for me. First four games I’ll give him the edge, he definitely was the better of the two players, but all I can worry about is the future. There’s three games left for me to prove myself. This is real gut-check time.”

Julien once again credited P-Bruins coaches Bruce Cassidy and Kevin Dean for their work developing players to plug and play in the NHL.

“Well I think they’ve done a great job in Providence, the coaching staff there. The one thing that’s been impressive that the guys that have come up have fit in just seamlessly into our team,” said Julien. “The good part about that … is that we seem to be agreeing on how we need to play so there’s a lot of similarities. They’re not forced to play the same way, but they believe in the same kind of things that we do so it makes it a lot easier for players to come up here and just think about playing the game versus trying to do something different than they’ve been doing the whole time so got to give a lot of credit to those guys, they’ve done a wonderful job with the young players. Sometimes those things go unnoticed but certainly not to us here.”

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Mick Colageo

Mick Colageo grew up in East Walpole, Mass., skating on Coburn's Pond and at 4 Seasons Arena. He has been writing about hockey since 1986 and covering the Bruins since 1991, is a voting member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, and ... Read Full